


Janus

by wherewouldwebe



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, drowning your feelings in lies, emotionally unhealthy sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 03:10:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18327434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherewouldwebe/pseuds/wherewouldwebe
Summary: They’re both imagining someone else.





	Janus

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I'm Jen and I hope this story makes sense

They’re both imagining someone else.

Their minds are a mirror image—similar but flipped. Inversions and distortions of the same golden hair, the same jade eyes, the same lean muscle that will never grow to full maturity. He is beautiful like this, timeless but not ageless.

This is what frightens Eiji the most. Ash will forever remain eighteen years old, whereas Eiji will grow older. Eiji will never forget his face, but that face is a fixed point—years from now the boy at the center of Eiji’s world will seem like just that: a _boy_. The love so warm and comforting and all-encompassing will gradually become a past tense. But for now, it is present; an intrinsic truth written into the very fabric of the universe. And it is enough.

His eyes are closed, both of them have their eyes closed. It is an unspoken understanding that they are not here for each other’s pleasure. The man above Eiji has tied his long hair back, out of the way, and Eiji is fiercely grateful.

Yut-Lung imagines the body under his hands to belong to he who was both enemy and kindred spirit. His touch lingers on the corded muscle where neck meets shoulder. The tempered, almost-suppressed shiver pleases him on a primal level. This submission, this sweet obedience, makes him feel powerful—the only person able to subdue the beautiful, wild creature who knew so much about the cruelty of the world.

For a brief but intense period of his life, Yut-Lung had pursued his obsession with a single-mindedness that he was sure could only end in breaking Ash or killing him. Ash, always one step ahead, took both those possibilities from him. Ash is dead and Yut-Lung is still here, alive and empty and pathetic enough to engage in this cheap imitation. And maybe it is for the best that he never learned of Ash’s touch, or of how the length of his body would feel stretched against his—because in these twilight moments, with his eyes screwed shut and his focus on the hitches and gasps of breath against his neck, he is able to pretend.

It’s the last time they’ll find themselves in this situation, they tell themselves. It’s always the last time—it has been ever since the first time. And this whole set of circumstances is built on lies, so what’s one more? The lies make it bearable, more than bearable. The lies are all that keep them from being alone.

They lie together.

Eiji pretends that the firm touches are of a strong person trying to be gentle. He’s always seen that in Ash, the gentleness he’d smothered for so long he thought it had suffocated. But Eiji saw it—the darkness surrounding it just made it glow all the brighter. Eiji always lets him lead, because that’s how it would be, how it would have to be. Because Ash would need to know that Eiji is _his_ , not the other way around. Ash would need to know that he had a choice.

Yut-Lung digs his thumbnail into his partner’s wrist, only long enough to hear the soft hiss of pain. He only allows himself moments of cruelty—any more and he would be no better than them; those who hurt and laugh and whose cruelty only inspires fear, not loyalty. Ash is too feral a creature not to bite back. He needs moments of kindness too. Yut-Lung knows this because he was never shown kindness, and it only strengthened his own resolve to kill his masters.

The moments after are always the hardest, when eyes must be opened to find strewn clothes, and one or the other leaves. No words are ever exchanged, and even though during the act they feel as close to another person as they can possibly be, the facade breaks quickly when they find completion. Because completion implies that they are whole, and those moments of euphoria only serve to remind them of how broken they really are.

When they are separate again, alone again, the face they picture dissolves into memory again. In those morose moments, Eiji contemplates going back to Japan. Yut-Lung drinks. They berate themselves for their decisions, for trying desperately to live a fantasy. They go back to routine, back to their lives without each other. Without Ash.

And that reality feels just as fake.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope that I've made a story for this pairing that is both believable and emotional. Please let me know


End file.
